Shkodër ( , ; ; historically known as Scodra or Scutari) is the fourth-most-populous city of Albania and the seat of Shkodër County and Shkodër Municipality. Shkodër has been continuously inhabited since the Early Bronze Age ( 2250–2000 BC), and has roughly 2,200 years of recorded history. The city sprawls across the Plain of Mbishkodra between the southern part of Lake Shkodër and the foothills of the Albanian Alps on the banks of the Buna, Drin and Kir rivers. Due to its proximity to the Adriatic Sea, Shkodër is affected by a seasonal Mediterranean climate with continental influences.
An urban settlement called Skodra was founded by the Illyrian tribe of Labeatae in the 4th century BCE. It became the capital of the Illyrian kingdom under the Ardiaei and Labeatae and was one of the most important cities of the Balkans in ancient times. It has historically developed on a hill strategically located in the outflow of Lake Shkodër into the Buna. The Romans annexed and sacked the city after the third Illyrian War in 168 BC, when the Illyrian king Gentius was defeated by the Roman force of Anicius Gallus.Battles of the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Chronological Compendium of 667 Battles to 31Bc, from the Historians of the Ancient World (Greenhill Historic Series) by John Drogo Montagu, , 2000, page 47 In the 3rd century AD, Shkodër became the capital of Praevalitana, due to the administrative reform of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. With the spread of Christianity in the 4th century AD, the Archdiocese of Scodra was founded and was assumed in 535 by Byzantine Emperor Justinian I.
Shkodër is regarded as the traditional capital of northern Albania, also referred to as Gegëria, and is noted for its arts, culture, religious diversity, and turbulent history among the Albanians. The architecture of Shkodër is particularly dominated by mosques and churches reflecting the city's high degree of religious diversity and tolerance. Shkodër was home to many influential personalities, who among others, helped to shape the Albanian Renaissance.
Name
The city was first attested in classical sources as the capital of the Illyrian kingdom with the name Skodra (Ancient Greek: Σκόδρα, with the ethnonymic genitive "of the Skodrians", appearing on 2nd-century BC coins) and Scodra (Latin form).e.g. Ptolemy, Geographia II.16.; Polybius, Histories, XXVII.8.
Although the ultimate origin of the toponym / is uncertain,; Albanian translation: . the name is certainly pre-Roman. A Paleo-Balkan origin has been suggested, relating it to the Albanian (definite form: ) 'hill', and Romanian '(wooded) mountain, forest', with the same root as the ancient toponym Codrio/Kodrion.
The further development of the name has been a subject of discussion in Albanian historical linguistics. Some linguists treat the development from Illyrian to Albanian / as evidence of regular development within the Albanian language. Others have argued that Albanian / fails to display certain known phonological changes that would have to have happened if the name had been continually in use in Proto-Albanian since pre-Roman times, based on the fact that */sk-/ consonant clusters are usually morphed into a */h-/, and not */ʃk-/, and o is morphed into a, not preserved.; cited after Matzinger 2009.; cited after Matzinger 2009. However, the phonetic changes sk > h and o > a occurred at an early stage of Proto-Albanian, because they regularly do not involve early Greek and Latin loanwords. Contacts of Albanian with Greek date back as early as the 7th century BC since the foundation of the Greek colonies on the Adriatic coast of Albania, hence those phonetic changes in Proto-Albanian certainly predate the foundation of Skodra (4th century BC) and the usage of its name. On the other hand, the o in would postdate first contacts with Latin, because in the earliest Latin loanwords in Albanian the ŏ is rendered as u. The preservation of ŏ in the Albanian form is to be explained probably because Latin was the predominant language of the Adriatic coastal areas, naturally exercising a significant pressure and influencing the linguistic forms of the local toponyms in Albanian. Nevertheless, the Albanian toponym certainly predates the end of the ancient Roman period.Origins: Serbs, Albanians and Vlachs Chapter 2 in Noel Malcolm's Kosovo, a short history (Macmilan, London, 1998, p. 22-40) - The evidence is in fact very mixed; some of the Albanian forms (of both urban and rural names) suggest transmission via Slav, but others -including the towns of Shkodra, Drisht, Lezha, Shkup (Skopje) and perhaps Shtip (Stip, south-east of Skopje) - follow the pattern of continuous Albanian development from the Latin. (One common objection to this argument, claiming that 'sc-' in Latin should have turned into 'h-', not 'shk-' in Albanian, rests on a chronological error, and can be disregarded.) There are also some fairly convincing derivations of Slav names for rivers in northern Albania - particularly the Bojana (Alb.: Buena) and the Drim (Alb.: Drin) - which suggest that the Slavs must have acquired their names from the Albanian forms. [50
In modern times, the term was adapted to Italian as () and (); in this form it was also in wide use in English until the 20th century.Encyclopædia Britannica, 11th edition (1911), "Scutari" article. In Serbo-Croatian, Shkodër is known as Skadar (), and in Turkish as .
History
Early history
The earliest signs of human activity in the lands of Shkodër can be traced back to the Middle Paleolithic (120,000–30,000 years ago). Artifacts and faunal remains provide evidence that the first inhabitants of the area of Shkodër were Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. Presence of Neolithic farmers is also testified by artifacts. The Copper and Early Bronze Ages constitute an important watershed for the social evolution on the territories of the eastern Adriatic coast, including Shkodër, with the formation of new cultures and the beginning of new complex historical, ethnogenetic and cultural processes. This period represents for Shkodër the first step of a process of occupation and development. The inhabitants of the intensively settled Shkodër basin produced pottery, practiced agriculture, and manufactured metal tools. Shkodra's Early Bronze Age culture bears many similarities with the culture of the Eastern Adriatic coast and its hinterland, like the Cetina culture, and it also has connections with the Early Bronze Age culture of Maliq in southeastern Albania. During the developed Early Bronze Age the new practice of tumulus burials appears, which may be associated to Indo-European migrations from the steppes. During the Middle and Late Bronze Age the settlements in the region and extraregional interactions apparently increased. In the Late Bronze Age the inhabitants of Shkodra basin had contacts with Italy or northwest Greece. By the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age ( 1100–800 BC), the formation of a large, cohesive, and quite homogeneous cultural group had already occurred in a well defined territory of the Shkodra region, which was referred in historical sources to as 'the tribe of the Labeatae' in later times.
Antiquity
The favorable conditions on the fertile plain, around the lake, have brought people here in early antiquity. Artefacts and inscriptions, discovered in the Rozafa Castle, are assumed to be the earliest examples of symbolic behaviour in humans in the city. Although, it was known under the name Scodra and was inhabited by the Illyrian tribes of the Labeates and Ardiaei, which ruled over a large territory between modern Albania up to Croatia.PolybiusTitus LiviusEncyclopædia Britannica 2002 page 680 King Agron, Queen Teuta and King Gentius, were among the most famous personalities of the Ardiaei.
The city was first mentioned during antiquity as the site of the Illyrian Labeates in which they minted coins and that of Queen Teuta.The Illyrians by John Wilkes, , 1992, page 172, "...Gentius among the Labeates around Scodra..." In 168 BC, the city was captured by the Romans and became an important trade and military route. The Romans colonizedThe Illyrians by John Wilkes, page 213, "The list of Roman settlements includes some of the... Scodra..." the town. Scodra remained in the province of Illyricum and, later, Dalmatia. By it 395 AD, it was part of the Diocese of Dacia, within Praevalitana. After the split of the Roman Empire, Shkodra was taken by the Byzantines.
Middle ages In the early 11th century, Jovan Vladimir ruled Duklja amidst the war between Basil II and Samuel. Vladimir allegedly retreated into Koplik when Samuel invaded Duklja and was subsequently forced to accept Bulgarian vassalage. He was later slain by the Bulgarians. Shingjon (feast of Jovan Vladimir) has since been celebrated by Albanian Orthodox Christians.Koti 2006, para. 1, 2
In the 1030s, Stefan Vojislav from Travunija, then part of Medieval Serbia, expelled the last strategos and successfully defeated the Byzantines by 1042. Stefan Vojislav set up Shkodër, as his capital.Fine 1991, p. 206 Constantine Bodin accepted the crusaders of the Crusade of 1101 in Shkodër. After the dynastic struggles in the 12th century, Shkodër became an integral part of the Serbian Nemanjić Zeta province. In 1214 the city was briefly annexed to Despotate of Epirus under Michael I Komnenos Doukas. In 1330, Stefan Dečanski, King of Serbia, appointed his son Stefan Dušan as the governor of Zeta with its seat in Shkodër. In the same year Dušan and his father entered the conflict which resulted with campaign of Dečanski who destroyed Dušan's court on Drin River near Shkodër in January 1331. In April 1331, they made a truce, but in August 1331 Dušan went from Shkodër to Nerodimlje and overthrew his father.
During the disintegration of the Serbian Empire, Shkodër was taken by the Zeta Balšić noble family, who surrendered the city to the Republic of Venice in 1396, in order to form a protection zone from the Ottoman Empire. During the Venetian rule the city adopted the Statutes of Scutari, a civic law written in Venetian. The Statutes of Scutari mention Albanian and Slavic presence in the city, but under Venetian rule many Dalmatian Italians were brought to Shkodra and as such formed the majority there. After the Black Death killed most of the inhabitants Albanians and Slavs formed the majority in the city. Venetians built the St. Stephen's Church (later converted into the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Mosque by the Ottomans) and the Rozafa Castle. In 1478-79 Mehmed the conqueror laid siege on Shkodër. In 1479 the city fell to the Ottomans and the defenders of the citadel emigrated to Venice, while many Albanians from the region retreated into the mountains. On the other hand the upper classes of the city, aided by the Jonima family settled in the cities of Ravenna, Venice and Treviso. The city then became a seat of a newly established Ottoman sanjak, the Sanjak of Scutari.
Ottoman period
With two sieges, Shkodër became secure as an Ottoman territory. It became the centre of the sanjak and by 1485 there were 27 Muslim and 70 Christian hearths, although by the end of the next century there were more than 200 Muslim ones compared to the 27 Christian ones, respectively.Clayer, Nathalie. " Is̲h̲ḳodra." Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. Brill Online, 2012. Reference. 2 January 2012 <http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/ishkodra-SIM_8713>